RELEGATING LEADERSHIP to HR

"Tell me it ain't so, Joe!"

It was my privilege to sit next to the Superintendent of Schools of a neighboring community at a luncheon recently. After we worked through our introductions, I asked him what his greatest challenge or frustration was at top-of-mind.

The keynote speaker at this particular event happened to be Scott Walker, the Governor of Wisconsin. Given the governor's dismantling of collective bargaining for public employees shortly after taking office, my false presumption was that I'd hear something related to that.

Wrong. This is what the superintendent told me; "People; if I could just get people to do what they're supposed to do, my life would be better."

THE PROBLEM POOL

What about the demographics of that wayward group? Was it the students, their parents? Nope. It was the personnel in the district that topped the list. Naturally he wasn't referring to the whole and I surmised it may have been his direct reports or at least those he had more occasion to be in contact with. Without relaying the entire conversation that ensued, there was a bigger picture, but I want to focus on the concern expressed by this leader because you and I know that he's not the only one faced with this conundrum.

Diane Stafford, at the Kansas City Star, wrote a short but interesting piece that appeared in our local rag's Sunday edition, entitled "CEOs want nice, flexible workers."

That attracted my attention and as a matter of fact, I sent Diane a note asking if there was more to her column than was published as it's not uncommon for papers to trim, intentionally or otherwise, because a local copywriter arbitrarily decides to. The piece was scanned and sent to Diane with my question. She generously responded and assured me that the entire thing was intact.

CEOs And MISGUIDED EXPECTATIONS

Stafford's report was based upon a panel discussion that included four executives representing different industry sectors with the audience being the KC chapter of the Society for Human Resource Management. The panel was to address two questions posed by SHRM; 1.) What kind of employees are employers looking for? , and 2.) How can human resource officials help?

Stafford summarized the responses to the first question; three that I found more curious than the remaining four of seven. They were:

               

 -  "Key People" who share their (the executives) philosophies about managing and growing their operations.

 -  "Workers who are willing to work" and show up every day.

 -  "Nice people, because you can't train nice."

To round out the sought after attributes; Rainmakers, Flexible, Bright and Team-oriented were the adjectives used to describe prospective candidates.

The CEOs response to the second question suggested that the CEOs believe that the HR departments should not only hire the right kind of people but also provide training that 'increases the value of the people we have.'" I suppose that is all well and good.

Before I get carried away here, let's assume this Q&A session covered 30-45 minutes and due to time and space constrictions, Stafford's mandate is what it is and in deference to the panel participants, the responses were probably more involved.

Being that as it may, my interchange with the school superintendent and corporate leaders I've worked with for the past decade leads me to believe that in many instances, C-level executives frequently overlook the necessity to clearly define their expectations, not only of the HR department, but of themselves!

LACK OF DEFINITION

For convenience sake, let's pick on the four who sat on this Kansas City panel.

My guess is that of the four, you may find one who has clearly defined and committed to writing what he envisions his role at the top of that organization to be. I'd also guess that you'd only find one out of four that has personally committed to writing what he or she believes the organization is and how it should be defined. The percentage doesn't change much when you add that, in all likelihood, only one executive in four has clearly defined the roles he expects his direct reports to fill. All of this, more often than not, gets poured into a "HR bucket" just as the KC panelists evidently did.

Just about every C-level executive I've worked with has all of the above in their heads. I don't know of any that mind-readers on their teams. They then wonder why the people working with them, "just don't get it." It's convenient to rest the blame with the HR folks but it's a significant, and sometimes, fatal flaw in their own leadership that leads to personnel shortcomings, lack of innovation and lackluster profitability when they have failed to make it clear who They are and what They expect of themselves and others.

IT'S MANDATORY - COACH OR GO HOME

If you happen to be a CEO, Business Owner or C-level executive and haven't committed to the reality that your greatest responsibility is to define yourself, your organization, the roles of your direct reports and then to be fully present as the one responsible for developing the team you envision your company to be driven by, well, leaving it up to someone else just won't cut it.

Jim Naleid is a Life-long Entrepreneur, Change-Agent and Thought Leader, Managing Director of Naleid & Associates and Regional TEC (“The Executive Committee”) Chair leading a group of executives to become Better Leaders, Making Better Decisions with Better Results. http://www.linkedin.com/in/jimnaleid